


Shroud

by explosionshark



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 17:21:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1122479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explosionshark/pseuds/explosionshark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. “So you steal from the rich and give to the needy?”</p><p>The woman glances down at herself. “Yeah, you could definitely say that.”</p><p>Christa lets go of the door and takes a step toward her. “What’s your name?”</p><p>A smile spreads across the woman’s face the way drops of ink spread out in water. “Ymir. Who are you?”</p><p>“I’m Chr-,” she bites her lip, glancing around the empty shack. Her castle. Her fortress. “I’m Historia.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shroud

**Author's Note:**

> My most recent endeavor. Beta help from tumblr users brappzannigan, garrianvakarian, and ghostmartry who all have excellent blogs. Comments, criticisms, whatever - welcome as always.

**CHAPTER 1: _Year One:_ Escape Artist**

Christa lays awake and listens to the storm outside. The splatter of fat wet raindrops against the windowpane becomes the cacophonous hoofbeat of horses charging; the violent trembling of leaves in the wind transforms into the clashing of swords and armor; the distant crash of rolling thunder becomes massive cannons so loud that they rattle the very walls of the city they were built to protect.

There is a soldier, Historia Riess; brave, kindhearted, and strong. She leaves her home and the family she loves more than anything - her doting father, the lord, her warm and affectionate mother - to fight for the king’s army. It is difficult and her family misses her terribly, but they are proud as well and their love gives her strength. Historia is a little like the heroes in the stories she’s been learning to read. She makes many friends and rescues children and animals and protects the city from its enemies. She is a gifted fighter, but merciful as well. She saves the king himself and is well loved across the land for her courage and her skill.

And then the hounds-

 _Hounds?_! There couldn’t be _hounds!_ That was wrong. Historia was at a feast, thrown by the king in her honor, to thank her for saving the city. The mad, frantic snarling and yelping had no place in this part of the story. It wasn’t _right-_

It’s the baying of the dogs that has Christa dropping gracelessly from her bunk, bare feet slapping the cold wooden floor with a too-loud thunk. She winces at the sound, even though a quick glance around the darkened room reveals no one else has so much as stirred.

Outside, beneath the wind and the rain, the dogs still howl. The sound is a little frightening. She’s seen the trainers as they work the hounds up before a hunt, the way they jostle one another, snarling and snapping, looking terrified and terrifying as they yip and bark and howl. Could it be a hunt? At night?

Cautiously, Christa slips from the darkened room. The servants’ quarters don’t have electricity like the manor does, but the hallway is illuminated by firelight from down the stairs. She slips down them quietly, holding fast to the railing for comfort. At the foot of the stairs she can see some of the adults crowded around a large window by the door.

“-prowler-”

“-another murder? Do you think-?”

“- _eight_ of the lord’s cattle in the last two months!”

“-THERE! I _saw_ something, _I saw-!”_

The adults, her mother among them, gasp and murmur and jostle for position at the window, and Christa’s curiosity overcomes her fear of being caught out of bed.

She pushes into the throng, weaving her way between people to press her face against the glass.

All she sees is dark and rain, though. Lightning lights the sky and for a moment she thinks she catches a glimpse of some of the hounds as they slip into the distant treeline. It’s a little exciting. She flattens her palms against the windowpane, glass fogging around her mouth and hands, and squints harder into the darkness.

“Christa-”

She jumps when a hand falls heavily on her shoulder. She glances up and sees Charles, one of the groundskeepers, peering down at her sternly.

“Seraphina,” He calls and Christa hunches her shoulders, dropping her chin to her chest and feeling her stomach roll up into her throat.

She’s staring at her feet to avoid her mother’s thin lipped expression of displeasure, but it’s there in her mind. She squints her eyes a little, and her mouth dips at the corners - or goes completely straight if Christa’s _really_ in trouble. The expression makes her look older. Still beautiful, still the most beautiful woman Christa’s ever seen, but more sour, less radiant. It makes Christa’s heart thump painfully in her chest and her stomach lurch unpleasantly with shame - she’s the only person she knows that can put that look on her mother’s face.

“Thank you, Charles,” her mother murmurs. She grabs Christa by the wrist, fingers warm, nails sharp against Christa’s skin, and leads her toward the stairs. “ _What_ do you think you’re doing?”

“I heard the dogs, I just wanted-”

“You-”

There’s a sudden, frantic hammering on the door that draws her mother’s attention. The entire room snaps to attention and after a brief moment of unsettling quiet Charles moves to answer the door.

Christa catches a glimpse of the steward’s boy, soaking wet with rain and clutching a musket as he begins, “Your doors and windows. Quickly. The hounds, they - it was in the pasture, they’ve run it into the trees, but-”

“Bed, Christa,” her mother instructs her, voice strained. She lets go of Christa’s wrist and draws back. “Now.”

Christa nods, although her mother has turned away and scrambles back up the stairs, cradling her wrist. She ignores the burning curiosity in the pit of her stomach - what _did_ the hounds chase into the trees? - and climbs back into her bed.

Her wrist burns and she holds it toward the window. In the scant light that filtered through the thick purple rainclouds she can see a trail of half-moon indents pressed into her skin, marks from her mother’s nails. She runs her fingertips over the marks, mindful of their tenderness. It’s the first time her mother has touched her in days. The first time she’s spoken to her this week.

Christa falls asleep and dreams of Historia Reiss chasings beasts through the forest.

x.x.x.

The morning is disappointingly mundane. All that’s left of the storms is mud and soggy earth; the skies are clear and blue and boringly beautiful. The adults are tightlipped and tense but they carry on as usual, occasionally leaning in to whisper grimly to each other. When Christa tries to ask about the steward’s visit, she’s cuffed hard on the back of the head by Abigail, one of the older girls who works in the scullery. The other children slept through all the commotion, Christa is sure, or they would be buzzing with excitement over the mystery. As it is, she’s not keen to be smacked again, and the other children don’t really talk to her anyway, so she keeps her mouth shut through breakfast.

After the meal, she starts her chores. She begins as she does every morning, with the chickens. She feeds them first before heading into the coop to harvest eggs. Christa endures an onslaught of vicious pecks to the fingers from a particularly broody hen as she raids the nests, whispering her apologies to the birds under her breath. Animal mothers, she understands, don’t like to be separated from their young. It makes her sad to think about, so she hurries through collecting the eggs, eager to be done with it even if it means all that’s left is cleaning the coop.

It’s nearly noon before she’s finished tending the birds. She takes her lunch alone in a dusty corner of the dining room, eating quickly before surreptitiously stuffing a hunk of bread in the pocket of her dress for later.

Christa reports to Oskar after her meal, hoping he would send her on to assist the stable boys and grooms - the horses are her favorite - but instead she’s ordered to the scullery to help with dishes.

Her mother is a scullery maid, though she doesn’t even acknowledge Christa when she arrives today. It’s Abigail who pulls her by the shoulder and sets her to her tasks. Abigail is ambitious, impertinently so for a 16 year old, according to some of the other maids. But she’s become a favorite pet of the housekeeper, so they keep their criticism quiet in her presence.

Christa’s mother used to be a chambermaid, part of the staff that lived in the servant’s quarters in the manor. It was bad, she understands, that she had been born. It was because she was born that her mother was made a scullery maid and moved to the bunkhouse. It was because she was born that her mother was so sad and angry, with no friends but the books she lost herself in whenever she could. It had been bad, which is why the adults ignore her and the other children taunt her.

Christa doesn’’t fully understand _why_ it was such a bad thing, although she thinks it might have to do with her father, Lord Reiss. No one would talk to her about it directly, but she tried to understand from the conversations she heard between the other servants and the somber sermons Pastor Nick gave each sunday. Fathers were only supposed to have a certain number of children, though she wasn’t sure exactly how many. All she knew was that she had been more than Lord Reiss was allowed and that was why her mother had gotten in trouble. It’s not fair, Christa knows, that her mother is being punished for Christa’s existence.

It’s confusing, and thinking about it too much makes her heart feel sick. She’s tried apologizing to her mother for the burden, but her mother only stared at her with her lips pressed shut tight and walked away.

She’s dismissed at three o’clock. Most of the children under ten don’t work full days on the Reiss estate. She’ll have to come back in the evening, Abigail says, to help the other maids after dinner, but until then she has nearly three full hours just to herself.

And she knows exactly what she will do with them.

x.x.x.

She stops at the bunkhouse just briefly to grab the book she’s tucked under her pillow. None of the other children can read, she knows, but she still fears they might steal it if only to be mean spirited.

Christa wanders off away from the estate, slipping past the animal pens, toward the treeline. She finds tracks from the hounds and horses and great big muddy bootprints and follows them, tucking the book under her arm and grabbing a stick from the ground. She holds the stick like a rifle, weaving in and out of trees, following the trail of the beast that was terrorizing the city. The king had sent her into the woods alone, saying it was far too dangerous for anyone else. She had to bring back the head of the beast - no, wait, the heart - the heart of the beast to prove the city was safe once more.

She becomes so involved in the game that she almost misses the path to the cemetery, but she quickly adjusts her course.

It’s her secret place.

She doesn’t like the old cemetery so much; she’s only been in there twice and both times had been a little spooky. No one had been buried there in years, but alone among the gravemarkers she can’t help but think of the scary stories and legends the old servants tell about the dark spirits and monsters that haunt those places.

It’s not the cemetery she comes for, but the abandoned caretaker’s shack on its outskirts. She discovered it a month ago when she was wandering, playing soldier. It’s a quiet place, but it feels peaceful instead of lonely. And it can be anything: a castle under siege, the sprawling manor Historia grew up in, a cavernous dungeon full of monsters and bandits.

Something is different today. Christa can feel it in the air, something that makes her gait slow and the tiny hairs on her arms and neck stick up.

She looks around, but doesn’t see a sign of anyone. She thinks about turning back, going home to read in her bunk, but-

Historia wouldn’t do that. Soldiers are brave. They’ll head into any kind of danger if it could help people. She remembers the baying of the hounds from the night before and feels her guts clench from fear but - what if she could help?

What if she could find what they were looking for? She knows the way back. If she finds it, she can run - she would run _so fast_ and tell the kennel master and lead them back here and save _everyone-_

Christa takes a deep breath and sets her book carefully down on the floor, lifting the stick up in front of her like a sword, and walks toward the shack.

It’s empty.

Except…

Except the wardrobe in the corner has been shoved up against the window on the north wall, and the big chest has been cleared off and dragged into the wardrobe’s place.

Christa tightens her grip on her sword and forces herself to approach the chest, despite the dizziness in her head. She has to find out - has to know-

Cautiously, she lifts the lid.

There’s a body inside. Christa’s breath catches in her throat, the only thing that keeps her from screaming aloud. It’s the shape of a body, but she can’t see much under the green woolen cloak draped over it. She waits a beat, two, three - it’s not moving. It’s not breathing.

With a terrified huff she drops the lid, scrambling backwards until she trips and falls on her backside. She twists frantically around and pushes herself up on her forearms, trying to rise to her feet when she feels a hand wrap around her ankle.

She screams, lashing out automatically and kicking at the fingers around her ankle with her free foot, twisting on her back and swinging out wildly with her stick. It connects with a sharp _thwick_ of wood splintering at the force of the blow.

“Ow, fuck! Kid!” the corpse’s voice is gravelly, rough. “Kid, calm down. _Cut it out.”_

“Let go!” Christa shouts, sounding braver than she feels, still kicking viciously at the corpse’s hand. “Let me go!”

“Okay, okay, fine!”

Her ankle is promptly released.

Christa scrambles to her feet, setting off for the door once more, heart pounding, too scared to look back.

“Wait, hey-!” comes the voice. “ _Please._ ”

It sounds… scared.

Christa stops, a hand pressed against the wood of the door. She waits several long moments - to be attacked, to feel her body seized again by the creature on the floor - but nothing happens.

“Are you going to hurt me?” she asks, voice trembling.

“No, no,” she’s assured. “Christ, you’re a kid, what do you think I am? Some kind of monster?”

Well… _yeah._

Cautiously, Christa turns around.

It’s a woman, draped in the green cloak and sprawled on the floor. She doesn’t look particularly threatening, cradling her swollen hand against her chest and casting suspicious looks at Christa from the ground.

She is _filthy_. Her cloak is covered in mud, there are twigs and leaves in her hair, while her face is streaked with dirt and _blood._

“You’re hurt!” Christa gasps, alarmed.

“A little,” the woman grimaces, dragging herself into a sitting position with her back resting against the chest. “You kick _hard.”_

“No, you-” Christa begins pointing at the rusty brown bloodstain on the front of her cloak. Pointing is rude, she remembers, so she drops her arm quickly. “Stay here, I’ll go get help-”

“No!” The woman barks at her, voice harsh. “Don’t do that-”

“Why-?” Christa starts. _Prowler_ , she remembers the adults saying. _Another murder._

She’s scared again.

She presses her back into the door, preparing herself to bolt.

“Where are you going?” the woman asks though it doesn’t seem like she’s going to make any attempt to stop Christa.

“To get you help,” Christa explains, a little shocked by the note of challenge in her voice.

“No, don’t do that.”

“Why?”

“Because… because I’m hiding.”

 _“Why?”_ Christa presses.

“Because men are chasing me.”

Christa grits her teeth, inching the door open behind her.

“Wait, wait, _stop-”_

“The dogs were after you,” Christa breathes. “Last night. It was _you_.”

The woman blinks, a little surprised, before nodding slowly. “Yes.”

“Why?” Christa demands again.

“I… stole something,” the woman admits, shrugging far too casually for a severely injured fugitive.

A tense moment of silence passes.

“Well, I’m telling,” Christa announces boldly.

“What? _Why?”_ The woman asks. “What have I done to _you?”_

“Stealing is _wrong-”_

“-yeah, beating strangers with sticks is _totally_ fine!”

“You scared me!” Christa argues, stamping her foot petulantly, despite the guilt that swells in her stomach. If she’d known it was just a normal woman and not a living corpse, she probably wouldn’t have hit her. Probably. “And that’s not the same, stealing is wrong.”

“Why?”

“Because… it’s not fair to take what doesn’t belong to you.”

“Says who?” the woman challenges.

Adults, mostly. The grown-up servants at the manor, usually as a warning to keep their children out of trouble and reduce fights. Pastor Nick in his sermons.

“Everyone,” Christa answers, a little thrown off. Who _doesn’t_ say stealing is wrong?

“So,” the woman rolls her eyes, “you’re telling me if a man with too much food on his plate to even eat says to his starving brother, ‘no, this isn’t yours, so you have to starve’ _that’s_ fair?”

“Well, no, but -” Christa frowns and lets the door slip shut again. “You stole food?”

The woman pauses, tilting her head slightly and licking her lips. “Well… yeah.”

Christa brightens. There’s a story - it’s even in the book she brought - about a hero-thief who stole from the corrupt wealthy nobles to feed the poor and starving.

“So you steal from the rich and give to the needy?”

The woman glances down at herself. “Yeah, you could definitely say that.”

Christa lets go of the door and takes a step toward her. “What’s your name?”

A smile spreads across the woman’s face the way drops of ink spread out in water. “Ymir. Who are you?”

“I’m Chr-,” she bites her lip, glancing around the empty shack. Her castle. Her fortress. “I’m Historia.”

Ymir leans forward, slipping an arm out of the cloak. It’s torn to shreds, bright red and mangled; Christa gasps, startled, but Ymir doesn’t seem very much in pain. She holds her hand out to shake. “Good to meet you.”

Christa rips her gaze away from the horrible wound and looks instead at the woman’s intent yellow eyes. “Pleased to meet you.”


End file.
